This sutra is a recent addition to our Zen Open Circle Sutra Book.
In the presence of Sangha, in the light of Dharma, in oneness with Buddha – may my path to realization benefit all beings!
In this passing moment karma ripens and all things come to be. I vow to affirm what is:
If there’s cost, I choose to pay. If there’s need, I choose to give. If there’s pain, I choose to feel. If there’s sorrow, I choose to grieve. When burning, I choose heat. When calm, I choose peace. When starving, I choose hunger. When happy, I choose joy. Whom I encounter, I choose to meet. What I shoulder, I choose to bear. When it’s my birth, I choose to live. When it’s my death, I choose to die. Where this takes me, I choose to go. Being with what is, I respond to what is.
This life is as real as a dream; the one who knows it can not be found; and truth is not a thing, therefore I vow to choose this constant Dharma open gate!
May all Buddhas and all beings help me live this vow.
The is the sutra from which our Online Zen Group (and this blog) takes its name. Originally composed by Shitou Xiqian and translated by Joan Sutherland & John Tarrant in 2001.
The mind of the great Indian Immortal
moves seamlessly between East and West.
It’s human nature to be quick or slow,
but in the Way there are no northern or southern ancestors.
The mysterious source of the bright is clear and unstained;
branches of light stream from that dark.
Trying to control things is only delusion,
but hanging onto the absolute isn’t enlightenment, either.
We and everything we perceive
are interwoven and not interwoven,
and this interweaving continues on and on,
while each thing stands in its own place.
In the world of form, we differentiate substances and images;
in the world of sound, we distinguish music from noise.
In the embrace of the dark, good words and bad words are the same, but in the bright we divide clear speech from confusion.
The four elements return to their natures
like a child to the mother.
Fire is hot, the winds blow,
water is wet, the earth solid.
The eye sees form, the ear hears voices,
the nose smells fragrance, the tongue tastes salt and sour.
Everything, depending on its root, spreads out its leaves.
Both roots and branches must return to their origin,
and so do respectful and insulting words.
The darkness is inside the bright,
but don’t look only with the eyes of the dark.
The brightness is inside the dark,
but don’t look only through the eyes of the bright.
Bright and dark are a pair,
like front foot and back foot walking.
Each thing by nature has worth,
but we notice it is shaped by its circumstances.
Things fit together like boxes and lids,
while the absolute is like arrows meeting in mid-air.
When you let these words in, you encounter the ancestors;
don’t limit yourself to your own small story.
If you don’t see the Way with your own eyes,
you won’t know the road even as you’re walking on it.
Walking the Way, we’re never near or far from it;
deluded, we are cut off from it by mountains and rivers.
You who seek the mystery,
in daylight or in the shadows of night, don’t throw away your time.
In this Council of All Beings, these two pieces have emerged expressing the voice of Covid-19… if you gave voice to Covid-19 what would be said?
Letter from Covid-19 to Humans
#Listen (VIDEO)
Letter from Covid-19 to Humans Via – Kristin Flyntz 3.12.2020
Stop. Just stop. It is no longer a request. It is a mandate. We will help you.
We will bring the supersonic, high speed merry-go-round to a halt We will stop the planes the trains the schools the malls the meetings the frenetic, hurried rush of illusions and “obligations” that keep you from hearing our single and shared beating heart, the way we breathe together, in unison. Our obligation is to each other, As it has always been, even if, even though, you have forgotten.
We will interrupt this broadcast, the endless cacophonous broadcast of divisions and distractions, to bring you this long-breaking news: We are not well. None of us; all of us are suffering. Last year, the firestorms that scorched the lungs of the earth did not give you pause. Nor the typhoons in Africa, China, Japan. Nor the fevered climates in Japan and India. You have not been listening. It is hard to listen when you are so busy all the time, hustling to uphold the comforts and conveniences that scaffold your lives. But the foundation is giving way, buckling under the weight of your needs and desires. We will help you. We will bring the firestorms to your body We will bring the fever to your body We will bring the burning, searing, and flooding to your lungs that you might hear: We are not well.
Despite what you might think or feel, we are not the enemy. We are Messenger. We are Ally. We are a balancing force. We are asking you: To stop, to be still, to listen; To move beyond your individual concerns and consider the concerns of all; To be with your ignorance, to find your humility, to relinquish your thinking minds and travel deep into the mind of the heart; To look up into the sky, streaked with fewer planes, and see it, to notice its condition: clear, smoky, smoggy, rainy? How much do you need it to be healthy so that you may also be healthy? To look at a tree, and see it, to notice its condition: how does its health contribute to the health of the sky, to the air you need to be healthy? To visit a river, and see it, to notice its condition: clear, clean, murky, polluted? How much do you need it to be healthy so that you may also be healthy? How does its health contribute to the health of the tree, who contributes to the health of the sky, so that you may also be healthy?
Many are afraid now. Do not demonize your fear, and also, do not let it rule you. Instead, let it speak to you—in your stillness, listen for its wisdom. What might it be telling you about what is at work, at issue, at risk, beyond the threats of personal inconvenience and illness? As the health of a tree, a river, the sky tells you about quality of your own health, what might the quality of your health tell you about the health of the rivers, the trees, the sky, and all of us who share this planet with you?
Stop. Notice if you are resisting. Notice what you are resisting. Ask why.
Stop. Just stop. Be still. Listen. Ask us what we might teach you about illness and healing, about what might be required so that all may be well. We will help you, if you listen.
Wise words from Ayya Jitindrya, an Australian Theravadin nun:
What is Covid-19 teaching us:
That when fear arises and is not checked with mindfulness and wisdom, it can quickly escalate into madness, aggression and harm.
That when correctly perceiving the immanent risk of illness or death (which is nonetheless ever at our doorstep), it is teaching us to value and care for one another.
That when ordinary household and food supplies become thin-on-the-ground, it is teaching us to value our resources, to make what we have go further and not waste anything.
That when times and circumstances change dramatically, it is not ‘the end of the world’, but the beginning of a new way of being – we can discover our adaptability and ingenuity, rediscover our humanity and creativity, and our ability to focus and be content with the small necessities of life and love for each other, rather than the constant entropic becoming of getting something else or going somewhere else!
That in quietening down and being alone, if we can get over the initial hump of restlessness it does not have to be lonely, but an opportunity to breathe and settle and discover a certain kind of oneness, a connectedness at the centre of our being – (loneliness >> aloneness >> all-oneness)
That when governments across the world are choosing to value lives over economies, it is showing us that we can change the world and our priorities dramatically and quickly, when we accurately perceive the threat to be real and immediate. If we can do this so purposefully with Covid-19, we can do this all the better with the imposing and immanent threat of climate chaos that requires immediate action to protect the whole of life on earth. On a relative scale, the threat of irreversible climate change is a far greater threat than Covid-19 actually poses to humanity and the earth, our home. And to make the necessary changes, it is not required to shut down the world economies, but rather to stimulate incredibly promising, new technologies across the sectors of energy and industry and dramatically reconsider the way people and objects of trade move around the globe perpetually, at a dreadful cost to the environment. And this, as opposed to Covid-19, could be a fantastically exciting change to move through, one that surges with economic growth for communities everywhere, as we actually have the intelligence and capabilities at our disposal right now – we only need to make the decision and change direction at the level of government, policy and industry. Now we can all see how easily that can be done if the threat is clearly perceived, and the response is a global one.
May we all realise and fathom these great teachings at our disposal during these times of unprecedented change and challenge!
Love and compassion is a doorway to peace and clarity. Peace and clarity is also a doorway to love and compassion. On either side of that doorway, there is also true freedom and fearlessness to be found, no matter what the conditions displaying themselves. This is really the ultimate teaching.
If you have a Zen practice you’ll already have a pretty strong sense of the value and productivity of difficulty. And especially of sticking with what is difficult. Of not turning away, not denying but actively including even the most messy and difficult matters, feelings, circumstances that arise in awareness.
I want to take up this aspect of things today, following on from where we were last time, talking about deep fears and the forms they can take, including the strong escape attempts that a lot of feelings can inspire. Such feeling can be as simple and obvious as fear, but fear can also be compounded by shame, anxiety, even envy. Envy in the sense of ‘Why does this have to be happening to me (not that other luckier person)!” And deeper in from that, possibly the fear that wonders, “And why should it not?”
Let’s look into this matter through a case from the Record of Dongshan, the 8th century figure from whose name and whose practice the Soto School of Zen derives…
I am humbled and honoured by the invitation to offer the opening keynote address to such an important and luminous gathering of women!
Twenty minutes is a very short time in which to address the obvious fact and impact of the silencing and marginalizing of women in the Buddhist tradition for the last several thousand years — and its studied indifference towards the venerable enlightened women who actually managed, against the odds, to break past such formidable barriers to practice, teach and inspire others.
It is of course impossible to reconcile this act of deep injury to the lives of hundreds of generations of women, with the actual core insights of the Buddhist path itself – which is waking up into direct awareness of the undivided and indivisible nature of mind and reality. This we find to be the very source of the natural flow of un-self-conscious compassion that cannot help but respond to the cries of the world!
“As everybody knows who has attended sesshin before, this is the night of not knowing – of not knowing as our most intimate practice-realization.
‘Intimate’ is a way of saying: awake, complete, present, not even a speck of difference, as intimate and close in to unabridged reality as that. And I love the fact that the word intimate also offers the tenderness of being, because that is what awake-ness is.
I was tempted to call this talk, “Awake in the dark”, since it is the dark of not knowing in which we awaken and of course at this moment it’s night as well. But I actually think I’ll call it, “Yes, we have no bananas”. I always loved the fact that there’s such a triumphant “Yes!” before the completely sanguine, “We have no bananas”. The idea that no bananas is so joyously proclaimed, recognized, as a welcome matter in some way.
What would a no-banana taste like?
‘Mu’ is of course this one syllable short of complete silence with which we practice letting go of the mind-road. The mind-road is not the kind of open, empty road we can easily love, accompanying you with no-birds, no-trees, no-insects, and best of all, no-you. The mind-road is more like the pressured highway, whizzing with traffic, burdened with noise, shouting at you with signs, and always making the false promise of ‘somewhere to go’.
